As a cultural movement, also referred to by historian Dame Frances Yates as the Rosicrucian Enlightenment, it arose in Europe in the early 17th century after the publication of the Rosicrucian Manifestos, which purported to announce the existence of a hitherto unknown esoteric order to the world and made seeking its knowledge attractive to many.[1][2]

As the mysterious doctrine of the aforementioned order, it is allegedly "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm."[3] The Manifestos do not elaborate extensively on the matter but clearly combine references to the Kabbalah, Hermeticism and the imagery of Christianity.

The Rosicrucian Manifestos heralded a "Universal Reformation of Mankind", through a science allegedly kept secret for decades until the intellectual climate might receive it. Controversies have arisen on whether they were a hoax, whether the "order of the Rosy Cross" existed as described in the Manifestos, or whether the whole thing was a metaphor disguising a movement that really existed, but in a different form. In 1616, Johann Valentin Andreae famously designated it as a "ludibrium".

By promising a spiritual transformation at a time of great turmoil, the Manifestos tempted many figures to seek esoteric knowledge. Seventeenth-century occult philosophers such as Michael Maier, Robert Fludd and Thomas Vaughan interested themselves in the Rosicrucian world view.[1] According to historian David Stevenson, it was influential to Freemasonry as it was emerging in Scotland.[4] In later centuries, many esoteric societies have claimed to derive from the original Rosicrucians.

Rosicrucian Manifestos

Origins

Between 1607 and 1616, two anonymous manifestos were published, first in Germany and later throughout Europe.[5] These were the Fama Fraternitatis RC (The Fame of the Brotherhood of RC) and the Confessio Fraternitatis (The Confession of the Brotherhood of RC).

The Fama Fraternitatis presented the legend of a German doctor and mystic philosopher referred to as "Frater C.R.C." (later identified in a third manifesto as Christian Rosenkreuz, or "Rose-cross"). The year 1378 is presented as being the birth year of "our Christian Father", and it is stated that he lived 106 years. After studying in the Middle East under various masters, possibly adhering to Sufism,[6] he was unable to spread the knowledge he had acquired to any prominent European figures. Instead, he gathered a small circle of friends/disciples and founded the Rosicrucian Order (this can be deduced to have occurred around 1407).

During Rosenkreuz's lifetime, the Order was said to consist of no more than eight members, each a doctor and a sworn bachelor. Each member undertook an oath to heal the sick without payment, to maintain a secret fellowship, and to find a replacement for himself before he died. Three such generations had supposedly passed between c.1500 and c.1600, a time when scientific, philosophical and religious freedom had grown so that the public might benefit from the Rosicrucians' knowledge, so that they were now seeking good men.[7]

Reception

The manifestos were and are not taken literally by many but rather regarded either as hoaxes or as allegorical statements. The manifestos directly state: "We speak unto you by parables, but would willingly bring you to the right, simple, easy, and ingenuous exposition, understanding, declaration, and knowledge of all secrets."

It is evident that the first Rosicrucian manifesto was influenced by the work of the respected hermetic philosopher Heinrich Khunrath, of Hamburg, author of the Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae (1609), who was in turn influenced by John Dee, author of the Monas Hieroglyphica (1564). The invitation to the royal wedding in the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz opens with Dee's philosophical key, the Monas Hieroglyphica symbol. The writer also claimed the brotherhood possessed a book that resembled the works of Paracelsus.

Their literature announced them as moral and religious reformers. They used the techniques of chemistry (alchemy) and of the sciences generally as media through which to publicize their opinions and beliefs.

In his autobiography, Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654) claimed that the anonymously published Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz was one of his works, and he subsequently described it as a ludibrium. In his later works, he makes alchemy an object of ridicule and places it along with music, art, theater and astrology in the category of less serious sciences. According to some sources, his role in the origin of the Rosicrucian legend is controversial.[8] However, it was generally accepted according to others.[9]

Rosicrucian Enlightenment

A 17th century depiction of the Rosicrucian concept of the Tree of Pansophia, 1604.

In the early 17th century, the manifestos caused excitement throughout Europe by declaring the existence of a secret brotherhood of alchemists and sages who were preparing to transform the arts, sciences, religion, and political and intellectual landscape of Europe. Wars of politics and religion ravaged the continent. The works were re-issued several times, followed by numerous pamphlets, favorable or otherwise. Between 1614 and 1620, about 400 manuscripts and books were published which discussed the Rosicrucian documents.

The peak of the "Rosicrucianism furore" was reached when two mysterious posters appeared on the walls of Paris in 1622 within a few days of each other. The first said "We, the Deputies of the Higher College of the Rose-Croix, do make our stay, visibly and invisibly, in this city (...)", and the second ended with the words "The thoughts attached to the real desire of the seeker will lead us to him and him to us." [10]

Michael Maier was appointed Pfalzgraf (Count Palatine) by Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary and King of Bohemia. He also was one of the most prominent defenders of the Rosicrucians, clearly transmitting details about the "Brothers of the Rose Cross" in his writings. Maier made the firm statement that the Brothers of R.C. exist to advance inspired arts and sciences, including alchemy. Researchers of Maier's writings point out that he never claimed to have produced gold, nor did Heinrich Khunrath or any of the other ′Rosicrucianists′. Their writings point toward a symbolic and spiritual alchemy, rather than an operative one. In a combination of direct and veiled styles, these writings conveyed the nine stages of the involutive-evolutive transmutation of the threefold body of the human being, the threefold soul and the threefold spirit, among others esoteric knowledge related to the "Path of Initiation".

In his 1618 pamphlet, Pia et Utilissima Admonitio de Fratribus Rosae Crucis, Henrichus Neuhusius wrote that the Rosicrucians departed for the east due to European instability caused by the start of the Thirty Years' War. In 1710, Sigmund Richter, founder of the secret society of the Golden and Rosy Cross, also suggested the Rosicrucians had migrated eastward. In the first half of the 20th century, René Guénon, a researcher of the occult, presented this same idea in some of his works.[12] An eminent author of the 19th century, Arthur Edward Waite, presented arguments contradicting this idea.[13] It was in this fertile field of discourse that many Rosicrucian societies arose. They were based on the occult, inspired by the mystery of this "College of Invisibles".

The idea of such an order, exemplified by the network of astronomers, professors, mathematicians, and natural philosophers in 16th-century Europe promoted by such men as Johannes Kepler, Georg Joachim Rheticus, John Dee and Tycho Brahe, gave rise to the Invisible College. This was the precursor to the Royal Society founded in 1660.[14] It was constituted by a group of scientists who began to hold regular meetings to share and develop knowledge acquired by experimental investigation. Among these were Robert Boyle, who wrote: "the cornerstones of the Invisible (or as they term themselves the Philosophical) College, do now and then honour me with their company...";[15]John Wilkins and John Wallis, who described those meetings in the following terms: "About the year 1645, while I lived in London (at a time when, by our civil wars, academical studies were much interrupted in both our Universities), ... I had the opportunity of being acquainted with divers worthy persons, inquisitive natural philosophy, and other parts of human learning; and particularly of what hath been called the New Philosophy or Experimental Philosophy. We did by agreements, divers of us, meet weekly in London on a certain day and hour, under a certain penalty, and a weekly contribution for the charge of experiments, with certain rules agreed amongst us, to treat and discourse of such affairs..."[16]

The change from "operative" to "speculative" Masonry occurred between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 18th century. Two of the earliest speculative Masons for whom a record of initiation exists were Sir Robert Moray and Elias Ashmole. Robert Vanloo states that earlier 17th century Rosicrucianism had a considerable influence on Anglo-Saxon Masonry. Hans Schick sees in the works of Comenius (1592–1670) the ideal of the newly born English Masonry before the foundation of the Grand Lodge in 1717. Comenius was in England during 1641.

The Gold und Rosenkreuzer (Golden and Rosy Cross) was founded by the alchemist Samuel Richter who in 1710 published Die warhhaffte und vollkommene Bereitung des Philosophischen Steins der Brüderschaft aus dem Orden des Gülden-und Rosen-Creutzes (The True and Complete Preparation of the Philosopher's Stone by the Brotherhood from the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross) in Breslau under the pseudonym Sincerus Renatus[18] in Prague in the early 18th century as a hierarchical secret society composed of internal circles, recognition signs and alchemy treatises. Under the leadership of Hermann Fictuld the group reformed itself extensively in 1767 and again in 1777 because of political pressure. Its members claimed that the leaders of the Rosicrucian Order had invented Freemasonry and only they knew the secret meaning of Masonic symbols. The Rosicrucian Order had been founded by Egyptian "Ormusse" or "Licht-Weise" who had emigrated to Scotland with the name "Builders from the East". In 1785 and 1788 the Golden and Rosy Cross group published the Geheime Figuren or "The Secret Symbols of the 16th and 17th century Rosicrucians".

Led by Johann Christoph von Wöllner and General Johann Rudolf von Bischoffwerder, the Masonic lodge (later: Grand Lodge) Zu den drei Weltkugeln (The Three Globes) was infiltrated and came under the influence of the Golden and Rosy Cross. Many Freemasons became Rosicrucianists and Rosicrucianism was established in many lodges. In 1782 at the Convent of Wilhelmsbad the Alte schottische Loge Friedrich zum goldenen Löwen (Old Scottish Lodge Friedrich at the Golden Lion) in Berlin strongly requested Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and all other Freemasons to submit to the Golden and Rosy Cross, without success.

After 1782, this highly secretive society added Egyptian, Greek and Druidic mysteries to its alchemy system.[19] A comparative study of what is known about the Gold and Rosenkreuzer appears to reveal, on the one hand, that it has influenced the creation of some modern Initiatic groups and, on the other hand, that the Nazis (see The Occult Roots of Nazism) may have been inspired by this German group.

According to the writings of the Masonic historian E.J. Marconis de Negre,[20] who together with his father Gabriel M. Marconis is held to be the founder of the "Rite of Memphis-Misraim" of Freemasonry, based on earlier conjectures (1784) by a Rosicrucian scholar Baron de Westerode[21] and also promulgated by the 18th century secret society called the "Golden and Rosy Cross", the Rosicrucian Order was created in the year 46 when an AlexandrianGnostic sage named Ormus and his six followers were converted by one of Jesus' disciples, Mark. Their symbol was said to be a red cross surmounted by a rose, thus the designation of Rosy Cross. From this conversion, Rosicrucianism was supposedly born, by purifying Egyptianmysteries with the new higher teachings of early Christianity.[22]

According to Maurice Magre (1877–1941) in his book Magicians, Seers, and Mystics, Rosenkreutz was the last descendant of the Germelshausen, a German family from the 13th century. Their castle stood in the Thuringian Forest on the border of Hesse, and they embraced Albigensian doctrines. The whole family was put to death by Landgrave Conrad of Thuringia, except for the youngest son, then five years old. He was carried away secretly by a monk, an Albigensian adept from Languedoc, and placed in a monastery under the influence of the Albigenses, where he was educated and met the four Brothers later to be associated with him in the founding of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. Magre's account supposedly derives from oral tradition.

Around 1530, more than eighty years before the publication of the first manifesto, the association of cross and rose already existed in Portugal in the Convent of the Order of Christ, home of the Knights Templar, later renamed Order of Christ. Three bocetes were, and still are, on the abóboda (vault) of the initiation room. The rose can clearly be seen at the center of the cross.[23][24] At the same time, a minor writing by Paracelsus called Prognosticatio Eximii Doctoris Paracelsi (1530), containing 32 prophecies with allegorical pictures surrounded by enigmatic texts, makes reference to an image of a double cross over an open rose; this is one of the examples used to prove the "Fraternity of the Rose Cross" existed far earlier than 1614.[25]

The Rosicrucian Fellowship, 1909/11. Teachings present the mysteries, in the form of esoteric knowledge, of which Christ spoke in Matthew 13:11 and Luke 8:10. The Fellowship seeks to prepare the individual through harmonious development of mind and heart in a spirit of unselfish service to mankind and an all-embracing altruism. According to it the Rosicrucian Order was founded in 1313[27] and is composed of twelve exalted Beings gathered around a thirteenth, Christian Rosenkreuz. These great Adepts have already advanced far beyond the cycle of rebirth; their mission is to prepare the whole wide world for a new phase in religion—which includes awareness of the inner worlds and the subtle bodies, and to provide safe guidance in the gradual awakening of man's latent spiritual faculties during the next six centuries toward the coming Age of Aquarius.[28]

Chronological list of groups formed for the study of Rosicrucianism and related subjects

Many of these groups generally speak of a lineal descent from earlier branches of the ancient Rosicrucian Order in England, France, Egypt, or other countries. However, some groups speak of a spiritual affiliation with a true and invisible Rosicrucian Order. Note there are other Rosicrucian groups not listed here. Some do not use the name "Rosicrucian" to name themselves. Some groups listed may have been dissolved and are no longer operating.

Order of the Hermetic Gold and Rose+Cross, a.k.a. Christian Order of the Hermetic Gold and Rose+Cross, established in the Philippines in 2002 by former members of the defunct AMORC Pronaos of the Philippines[36]

Rosicrucian Order of the Golden Dawn, 2008

The Knights of the Militia Crucifera Evangelica (KMCE), Alchemical Order de la Rosé-Croix [37]

↑ "The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 5, No. 2/3 (Jul. - Oct., 1919), pp. 265-270 by Joseph A. Murray; Review of New England and the Bavarian Illuminati by Vernon Stauffer; Vol. LXXXII of Studies in History, Economics and Public Law by The Faculty of Political Science; Columbia University Press (1918)". Catholic University of America Press. JSTOR25011641.Missing or empty |url= (help)

↑ Waite, Arthur E. (1887), The Real History of the Rosicrucians – founded on their own Manifestos, and on facts and documents collected from the writings of Initiated Brethren, London, p.408

↑ "The origins of the Royal Society lie in an 'invisible college' of natural philosophers who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss the new philosophy of promoting knowledge of the natural world through observation and experiment, which we now call science." http://royalsociety.org/about-us/history accessed 2 May 2014

↑ Not 1909: a Charter forming this organization is dated from 1 April 1915 in New York, after a previous document titled "American Pronunziamento Number One" or "First American Manifesto" by H. Spencer Lewis issued in February, 1915; cf. http://www.parareligion.ch/sunrise/vanloo/ameng.htm

Clymer, R. Swinburne (1916) The Rose Cross order: a short sketch of the history of the Rose Cross order in America, together with a sketch of the life of Dr. P. B. Randolph, the founder of the order Philosophical Publishing Company, Allentown, Pennsylvania, OCLC6671066

McIntosh, Christopher (1992) The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason: Eighteenth-century Rosicrucianism in Central Europe and its relationship to the Enlightenment, E.J. Brill, New York, ISBN 90-04-09502-0

Palou, Jean (1964) La franc-Maçonnerie (The French Masons) Payot, Paris, OCLC417482551, in French

Steiner, Rudolf (1965) Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation: Mystery Centres of the Middle Ages: Six lectures given in Dornach, 4–13 January 1924 (translation of Steiner, Rudolf (1950) Mepterienstätte des Mittelalters: Rosenkreuzertum und Modernes Einweihungsprinzip, printed as volume two of The Mission of Christian Rozenkreuz) R. Steiner, London, OCLC7209265; see full text from the Rudolf Steiner Archive

Waite, Arthur Edward (1887) The Real History of the Rosicrucians G. Redway, London OCLC7080058; reprinted in 1960 by Society of Metaphysicians, Hastings, England, ISBN 1-85228-705-5; reprinted in 2000 by Garber Communications, Blauvelt, New York, ISBN 0-89345-018-9; see full text from The Internet Sacred Text Archive

Waite, Arthur Edward (1916–1918) Complete Rosicrucian Initiations of the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross ; reprinted in 2005 ISBN 978-0-9735931-7-4 and 2007 ISBN 978-0-9783883-4-8 by Ishtar Publishing, Burnaby, British Columbia; renamed in 2008 Rosicrucian Rites and Ceremonies of the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross by Founder of the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn Arthur Edward Waite ISBN 978-0-9783883-4-8 book description from Ishtar Publishing

Westcott, William Wynn (1885) Rosicrucian Thoughts on the Ever-Burning Lamps of the Ancients (pamphlet) G. Kenning, London; reprinted in 1979 by David Medina, London, ISBN 0-9505859-2-0; see full text from The Alchemy Web Site